But no—with a feeling of rushing, unreasoning joy she heard him coming across the hall. A moment later he walked through into the room and came and stood before her.
"Mother," he said, "it's a beautiful night. Would you care to come into the garden for a few minutes?"
As soon as they had stepped out of the French window into the darkness, she took his arm.
"You don't feel it cold?" he asked solicitously.
"Oh no," she said, surprised. "I'm so little cold, Oliver, that I shouldn't at all mind going over to the blue bench, and sitting down."
They went across the grass, to a curious painted Italian bench which had been a gift of the woman who was so much in both their thoughts.
And there, "I want to ask you a question," he said slowly. "What led to the marriage of Laura Baynton and Godfrey Pavely? From something she once said to me, I gather she thinks that you approved of it."
She felt as if his eyes were burning her in the darkness, and as she hesitated, hardly knowing what to say, he went on, and in his voice there was something terribly accusing.
"Did you make the marriage, mother? Did you really advise her to take that fellow?"
The questions stung her. "No," she answered coldly. "I did nothing of the kind, Oliver. If you wish to know the truth, the person who was most to blame was your friend Gillie, Laura's brother. Laura adored her brother. There was nothing in the world she wouldn't have done for him, and she married Godfrey—it seems a strange thing to look back on now—to please Gillie."